Murders evoke memories of past tragedies

For some local law enforcement officers, the murder of a Hendersonville couple and their daughter in front of the daughter's children Wednesday was the worst homicide they have ever experienced.

By Emily WeaverTimes-News Staff Writer

For some local law enforcement officers, the murder of a Hendersonville couple and their daughter in front of the daughter's children Wednesday was the worst homicide they have ever experienced. Two-and-a-half hours after the shooting, police found the daughter's estranged husband, Robert Warren III, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a field off of Howard Gap Road in Fletcher. Warren shot his wife, 30-year-old Carrie Tracy Warren, and her parents, Theresa Russell Tracy, 49, and Richard Allen Tracy, 51, as they stood in the yard of the Tracys' home on Piney Ridge Drive. He fled the scene as his 9-year-old daughter called 911. Hendersonville Police Chief Herbert Blake said he doesn't recall anything like this "ever (happening) in my years as a police chief anywhere."The last time those in law enforcement can remember someone killing three family members in Henderson County was 25 years ago. On Easter Sunday, April 3, 1988, 41-year-old Michael Leslie Rainey opened fire on his former in-laws as they gathered at a church for the funeral of Rainey's ex-wife's grandmother. A 24-year-old man was also killed. Rainey's ex-wife and two others were injured as they fled the barrage of bullets.Authorities said Rainey was armed with at least one handgun and a shotgun and began firing as the group arrived at Mountain Home Baptist Church at about 3 p.m. He was waiting in the parking lot of the church when Henderson County deputies arrived. He was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and given three life sentences in August 1988. He is serving his time at Johnston Correctional Institution. Investigators suspected the incident stemmed from an ongoing property dispute between Rainey and the victims.Police didn't need to look far to find Rainey that day. But officers from multiple agencies quickly came together Wednesday to search for Warren, shutting down roads, chasing tips and then zeroing in on the field in Fletcher where Warren abandoned his silver convertible. Although the effort drew about a hundred officers and a multi-agency SWAT team, it was not Henderson County's largest manhunt. On Nov. 26, 1986, a two-month search for robbery suspect Michael John Shornock ended when he engaged officers in a firefight. Officers opened the door of a ramshackle stable on Sugarloaf Mountain to find Shornock "standing in the dim light of his makeshift lair. Shornock smiled and shot them, then ran laughing to his death," according to an Associated Press story published in the Times-News on Dec. 1, 1986."In other manhunts we've had in this area, the suspect would run and run and run to try to get away," Capt. Tom Hatchet of the Henderson County Sheriff's Department said after the incident. "This guy would run to a spot where he could shoot officers and then run again. He wasn't trying to escape. It was so strange." Shornock's troubles began in May 1985, when he "stole a Jeep and led police on a lengthy chase, jumping from his car into a river when police closed in," the Associated Press reported. "He was captured when state troopers swam after him. He was charged with car theft and eight driving violations and was jailed under $217,000 bond. "Shornock escaped, but was recaptured a few days later. He was sentenced in August 1985 to three years in prison, and was paroled in June." Family members said he returned a changed man with a burning anger toward authority and the police who sent him to jail. Shornock lost his job in late August and his parole officer came looking for him. A warrant was issued for his arrest in early September. Police say Shornock robbed a Jacksonville, N.C., pawnshop, led Onslow County police on a three-county chase and was suspected of stealing a boat in Emerald Isle, the Associated Press reported."In October, Shornock moved south in the stolen boat toward the Florida coast, stopping to rob a restaurant at Wrightsville Beach. He called his mother from South Carolina to say he was alive and still on the run," according to the Associated Press."When he reached central Florida, Shornock eluded one manhunt after police spotted him breaking into a houseboat, and then another after he broke into a house, shot a woman's dog and forced her to cook dinner."Police believe Shornock returned to North Carolina in early November. He is suspected of robbing a Cape Carteret bank Nov. 21. During their escape, Shornock and an accomplice shot at police officers, wounding one."The next day, a Henderson County deputy spotted occupants of a car believed to be the getaway vehicle throwing beer bottles onto a highway near Edneyville. When he tried to stop them, a passenger in the Buick shot and disabled the deputy's car," according to the Associated Press."For the next three days, until he was cut down with a single bullet, Shornock led 450 police officers on a chase over near-vertical ravines, rocky cliffs and across the dense forest on Sugarloaf." Unsolved homicideThis week's shooting also sparked memories of a triple homicide in 1966 that remains unsolved nearly 47 years later. On a Sunday afternoon in July, the owner and manager of Tempo Music went missing. The following Friday, their bodies were discovered along with that of a woman in a mysterious-looking semi-circle in a clearing near the Lake Summit dam.Tempo Manager Charles Glass, Tempo owner Vernon Shipman and Louise Davis Shumate were dead. Witnesses had seen Shipman driving with Glass in the front seat and a man and woman in the backseat on Sunday, four days before a missing persons report was filed. The car was later found abandoned in Hendersonville.Each victim suffered brutal blows to the head, and rumors of voodoo and Ku Klux Klan involvement circulated.Investigators believe the murders were committed where the bodies were found between 7 and 8:15 p.m. Sunday, July 17, 1966. The three were last seen alive around 6:30 p.m.Reach Weaver at emily.weaver@blueridgenow.com or 828-694-7867.

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